Christmas Cookies

Merry Christmas from the Munoz's!

Well, the big day is just about here.  If you haven't finished your wrapping, or even your shopping, the clock it is a ticking... loudly!  I finished the last of my shopping yesterday afternoon, which is actually fairly late for me.  I usually like to be done a week or so in advance, but I decided to pick up some things from wine country at the last minute, so I made an impromptu trip up to Napa yesterday morning.  I stopped at Starbucks to get a Gingerbread Latte before I got on the freeway, tuned the radio to the Christmas music station and sailed up there in record time.  I was in and out of my destination in 5 minutes and I hit the road back home within an hour of originally leaving my house.  Not Bad!  Then the traffic grinch decided that I was too full of Christmas good cheer and sent me 3 hours of traffic to wade through on my way home.  Bah Humbug!

Thankfully, once I eventually made it home to my house, which is all dressed up in it's holiday finest, my Christmas spirit returned pretty quickly.  Time to being on Christmas-  The presents are bought, the gifts are wrapped and my holiday baking is done!

I was a baking machine this year.  I tried 4 new cookie recipes, in addition to my Chocolate Chip & Cherry Cookies, which I make regularly.  It was a non-stop parade of goodies coming out of my tiny oven, all made in my tiny kitchen.  Normally I don't mind having a small kitchen, with only about 4 sq feet of counter space, but this year, wow I really could have used a little more room.  There were cooling racks on every flat surface, and containers of cookies stacked everywhere.  I found all 4 new recipes on Epicurious.com and three out of the four were awesome.  The mini New York style Black & White's were a lot of work to make, and nothing to write home about after all that work.  They will be scratched off the list for future baking.  The biscotti, toffee bars & chocolate peppermint crinkles were great though, and will be back next year for sure.  The links to the recipes are below, along with the recipe for my Dark Chocolate & Cherry Chunk cookies.  These are your basic chocolate chip cookies, but use dark chocolate chips & dried cherries instead of the regular semi-sweet chips & walnuts.  Yum!

Chocolate Chip & Peppermint Crinkles

Toffee Bars

Cranberry & Pistachio Biscotti

Dark Chocolate & Cherry Chunk Cookies

1 Cup (2 sticks) of butter, softened

3/4 cup packed brown sugar

3/4 cup granulated sugar

2 eggs

1 1/2 tsp vanilla

1 tsp salt

1 tsp baking soda

2 1/4 cups all purpose flour

1 6 oz bag of dried cherries

1 12 oz bag of Ghiradelli 60% cacao bittersweet chocolate chips

1. Beat Butter & Sugars.  Preheat the oven to 350 deg.  In a stand mixer beat the butter on medium-high until it's soft & fluffy, about 2 minutes.  Add in both sugars and continue to beat for another 5 minutes.
2. Add in the Eggs & Vanilla.  Add the eggs in, one at a time, beating the batter until the egg is well incorporated before adding in the next one.  Beat in the vanilla.
3. Add the Dry Ingredients.  Turn the mixer down to low and add in the salt & baking soda.  Then add in the flour, a cup at a time.  Make sure the flour is all incorporated before you add in more.
4. Add the Chips & Cherries.  Once the dough is well mixed, add in the chips & cherries and stir for a minute or so, until they are well mixed in to the batter.
5. Bake.  Drop the dough by the tablespoonful onto a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper and bake for about 9 minutes.
6. Enjoy!  Let the cookies cool on a wire rack for a few minutes.  They go great with a glass of cold milk!

I hope everyone has a very Merry Christmas and a Happy 2011!  I am heading home to New Jersey for the holidays, so there will be nothing cooking at the Munoz's for the next week or so.